French députés' offices will be equipped with a Linux operating system and open source productivity software. There will be 1154 French parliamentary workstations running on an open source OS, with OpenOffice.org, Firefox and an open source email client.

From a selfish point of view, I have enjoyed many years of using GNU/Linux without the hassle and fear of malware. My worry is that if GNU/Linux becomes increasingly popular on the desktop, then we can expect to see more malware targeted at GNU/Linux. After all, nothing is perfect.

I totally agree. I'm on Linux _only_ for several years now, but personally, I don't want Linux to replace Windows - I'd be happy if "we" had a market share big enough to get recognized by hardware vendors and some software companies, but a market share small enough for Linux to remain "ours". Well I hope you know what I mean. Linux should just be one respected OS amongst others (Windows, Mac OS, BSD etc.). It should just be well balanced amongst those systems (and hopefully Windows will die out sometimes in the nar future, so we have only UNIX-like OSes left, which makes all the OSes heterogenous but still compatible at the same time ;-) )

Hopefully the design of the Linux system will make it harder for malware authors to get their wares to work. I think the ubiquity of Windows has given people the mistaken impression that all platforms are equally susceptible. Fortunately, that's not true.

I guess we will revisit that once Linux gains enough market share to either prove or disprove this theory. My vote is disprove.

1) That is easy to understand, so that users can actively keep their systems secure. Security is the last thing you want to automate.

2) It should be strictly imposed on all user applications. No exceptions, no excuse.

These two requirements are much better met in Unix-like sytems than in Windows.

And, if the OS is a Free/Open Source one such as GNU/Linux, you get a huge bonus: Lots of FOSS applications in centralised repositories, which are inherently safer than proprietary, closed-source applications scattered throughout the internet.

The key to security, I think, is never needing antiviruses and other pattern-oriented, attacker-centered applications. Once you need them, you are lost. It's a bit like fighting a rat infestation by chasing rats with a stick: It's much better to keep the house clean and the food locked, so that rats have nothing to eat.